It’s been quite some time since I wanted to write this post. This event dates back to september 2008 so it’s not really new but I doubt anything has changed since then in the above-mentioned airport.
We were heading back to Honk Kong to catch our flight back to Paris that day after spending two entire weeks in the beautiful islands of Cebu, Bohol and Siargao (Philippines). We had done mainly scuba diving during our holiday and we had filled our suitcases with beautiful seashells. Obviously the guy from the X-ray machine at the Cebu Airport would see them and we were prepared to leave them behind. That’s when the unpredicted situation occured. The man asked me to open my suitcase and at the same time told me that if I wanted to tip the guys (including himself) he would let me pass with my stuff. I then asked him how much my “donation” should be and he told me that was up to me. I brought my wallet out of my pocket and then the guy told me to keep it more discreet. I would meet him in the CR (Filipino for lavatory) and make my donation there.
In fact I was quite happy that my friends and I were going to keep our bounty. I went to them and quickly explained about what I was going to do while getting a few bills out of my wallet. I then headed to the CR, following the customs officer, went to the urinal near him and while pretending to pee handed him the few pesos bills. At that instant I felt like a traficking mobster bribing the authorities to let my business going through the gates. That was a movie moment.
After that I went back to my friends and we were able to board the plane with our luggage full of seashells (most of them we had bought from local people on the islands we visited). We finally brought them back to our homes where they have been ever since. The irony in this is that they never made it out of the boxes they were cautiously packed in. We probably just had left them on the beautiful beaches where we found them in the first place, but that’s another story.